Will AI Take Your Job As A Designer? Takeaways From Our Figma Event

On the 25th of May, we hosted another amazing virtual event. This time, our topic was "Designing the Future: How AI is Revolutionizing UI/UX”. We invited absolute pros in UI/UX design and discussed how the future of the design world could look like when AI is involved. And let's be honest, the real question and what is most interesting to know is: Will AI take over designers jobs?

This question was just one of many we tried to answer in this panel discussion. To see the full video, click here. But if you are in a hurry and can't wait to get the question answered, we have summarized the main takeaways from our Figma event for you.

What Can Be Achieved With AI In the Design Industry?

Our guests think that AI is most helpful at the very beginning of a project when you want to generate as many different designs as possible.

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AI can give you inspiration, a glimpse of what to begin with.

What Is AI Exactly Good For When It Comes to Design?

to explore new design trends
to create mockups & play around with ideas (e.g. with different AI design tools)
it takes over small, repetitive and redundant tasks (writing descriptions, documentations, etc.)
to test fields you're not specialized in
to write and improve structures and instructions of a product feature
to run competitive analysis

Basically, AI is the tool of choice when you want to try out many different things yourself before handing it to someone else. This way, you can avoid getting stuck in a loop which can take valuable time for you and your project.

Several different shaped lightbulbs with black wires hanging from the roof with the light on, brick wall with graffiti in the background. — Photo by Patrick Tomasso / Unsplash

Are There Any Disadvantages Of Using AI in Design?

Well, the technology is extremely complex and still evolving every day. But as far as we can see today, AI design tools are great but at the same time not very human-like. Especially when you want to design something really unique and specific, you cannot rely on these tools. In it's current status, AI is simply not able to provide a fully sophisticated and useful design.

Will AI Take Over Jobs of Designers?

Let's come to the final question you have been waiting for: Will AI replace UI/UX designers? And the answer is no! Even better, AI can make your job easier. It can take over assisting jobs, give inspiration, and is for sure a great kickstarter for every new project. We also asked this question in our panel discussion. Here are two insightful answers from our guests:

Ricardo: A lot of things just can't be automated. When it comes to design, we're still dealing with black boxes. If you already created e.g. plenty of brand assets, AI tools cannot bring you to a high level about thinking of your craft. And then there's the idea of control: to have AI helping designers, we also need designers to help AI.

This means that we cannot expect from AI to be human-like. AI is a complex technology and so is the cognitive skill of a human brain. Designers need continuously train this technology to get better and evolve along with us and our needs.

AI creating liquid or gaseous simulations in flowing movements, in blue and violet shades. — Photo by Google DeepMind / Unsplash

Beth: We're still in really early exploration mode of "What is the purpose of using AI in UX Design and why should we use it?". We mostly utilize it to streamline our workflow and research questions. We've been exploring different tools and ChatGPT is probably the one we use the most, where we play around with ideas. But it was really interesting that, compared to our work without ChatGPT, it was not very human-like. We mostly just use it for the most time consuming tasks.

Although AI can certainly give you a good view, you have to go the extra mile yourself. Pay attention to details, uniqueness, and most important the client and product itself.

A Little Gift For You

Last but not least, we give you a list with all our favorite AI design tools.

ChatGPT
Uizard
Ando
Iconscout
Magicopy
Pallette
Sketch2Code
Colormind

Give it a go and have fun playing around with ideas. If you need help with the final touch or want professional UI/UX design:

Hit us up!